Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in Talks on Cholesterol Drug

July 19 (Bloomberg) -- Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. is in
talks with “more than one” possible partner to help develop
the company’s injectable drug to treat high cholesterol in
patients for whom statins aren’t effective, Chief Executive
Officer John Maraganore said.

The drugmaker wants to find a partner “over the next few
months” to help take the treatment forward in clinical trials,
Maraganore said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We are in
talks with more than one party at this time,” Maraganore said.
He declined to identify any of the companies that are talking
with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alnylam.

Alnylam’s drug is in a class known as anti-PCSK9 therapies.
The medicine likely would be used in people whose cholesterol
hasn’t been controlled on medicines including Pfizer Inc.’s pill
Lipitor, which generated $9.58 billion last year. The product
could be taken by millions of patients for whom statins aren’t
enough.

“It’s a very hot target in this pharma world,” Michael
King, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw, said in a telephone
interview. “They’re going to need a partner of some
substance.”

Alnylam shares rose less than 1 percent to $18.76 at the
close in New York.

Stops PCSK9

Called ALN-PCS, Alnylam’s drug stops a patient’s genes from
making PCSK9, a protein that keeps liver cells from stripping
bad LDL cholesterol from the blood. Other companies’ medicines
prevent the PCSK9 protein from binding to LDL receptors.

“Our approach turns off the faucet and prevents the flood
from starting to begin with,” Maraganore said. “The antibody
approach mops up the floor but doesn’t turn off the faucet.”

Companies that are doing researching in the area are Merck
& Co., based in Whitehouse Station; New Jersey, Paris-based
Sanofi and Tarrytown, New York-based partner Regeneron
Pharmaceuticals Inc.; New York-based Pfizer and Bristol-Myers
Squibb Co.; and Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen Inc.

Alnylam has completed a study of ALN-PCS in 32 healthy
volunteers. Taking the drug into the second and third phases of
trials will require a larger pool of patients, and cost more.